I think the thing that trips up most people when they think about the Big Bang, is thinking about it in terms of an explosion, like a supernova or a nuclear bomb. This leads to some typical inaccurate assumptions.

Since the Big Bang, the universe has expanded from a central point.

The universe must be expanding into something, what?

There was a time BEFORE the Big Bang.

These assumptions come from thinking about the Big Bang as a typical explosion, one originating from a single point and spewing matter out concentrically from there.

The Big Bang was not an explosion of matter into space, rather it was an explosion of space ITSELF, and since space and time are interconnected, we really have to say it was an explosion of space AND time, or space-time.

So, the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion of stuff like atoms or molecules, it was an explosion of a place and instance, it was the creation of when and where.

Before the Big Bang there was simply nothing, there was no ‘where’ nor was there a ‘when’. It doesn’t even make sense to say ‘before the Big Bang’.

I know, that’s pretty trippy, so let me try stretch my writing skills to the absolute max and see if I can make this sound reasonably coherent.

To begin, clear your mind of any notion of an explosion. The Big Bang was not an explosion, not of matter anyway.

The Big Bang occured, and at this moment, space and time are created. Now, we can talk about where and when. The notion of moment was born.

Next something really strange happens, the inflationary period. In the smallest fraction of a second, the universe gets very big, very fast. Driven by vacuum energy. space and time are being stretched like a rubber sheet, there is no center. Space and time and simply being created everywhere all at once within the boundary between where space and time is and where it isn’t. That boundary is increasing.

The incredibly short inflationary period ends as the vacuum energy is converted to heat. Driven by the inflation, the universe is set on its expansion.

The universe begins to cool, atoms and regular matter are created from what’s left over when all matter-antimatter particles have wiped each other out. All that remains in the stuff that will become the stars, galaxies, MacBooks and iPods.

By now, only 100 seconds have elapsed. As the universe gets older and larger, things cool down enough so that stars, galaxies and the stuff we’re all familiar with can form.

This is incredibly simplistic, but what I want you to take away from this is that at no point was matter spewing forth from anything. Space and time itself was being created first. Ordinary matter (atoms, molecules etc) was created out of tiny imbalances of energy left over from the inflationary period.

It’s a little humbling to think that everything we can experience, everything that makes us who we are, is a cosmic afterthought made possible by infinitesimal imbalances of energy from the greatest of all natural events. No imbalances, no us.

If the number of matter-antimatter particles created by the vacuum energy that pushed the universe outward had been identical, the universe would be completely empty.

If anti-matter particles has outnumbered normal matter, we would be living in a completely different house.

So any universal boundary that exists (an edge to the universe), is between place and time, and nothing. Of existence and non-existence. Of laws of nature and no laws of nature.

It is that boundary which is expanding and has no center. It is the “when” and “where” that things can occur that is getting bigger all the time.

Imagine pulling a large rubber sheet with white dots on it from every direction. All of the dots are spreading apart from each other everywhere, not from some central point. From the perspective of each dot, all the other dots are moving away from it.

Outside of the sheet, nothing can happen, you can’t put stuff in there because there is no ‘in there’ to put it.

<Pause for a moment so you can smoke a doobie>

If everything in the universe is flying apart from everything else, this begs the question, Why aren’t the galaxies, stars, planets, the atoms in my body, also flying apart? Shouldn’t we all be slowly disintegrating as space and time expands?

After all, there is space and time in between protons and electrons, isn’t that space increasing all the time as well?

The answer is yes, but there are other forces at work at closer distances that fight against the expansion of the cosmos. If those forces didn’t exist (things like gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces), then nothing could form to begin with. It is those forces that create structure and beauty, and us.

For example, gravity keep atoms in a star together so they can shine, it also keeps stars clumped together in galaxies. On a local level, other forces can counteract the expansion of the universe. Chemical bonding and gravity keeps us alive.

These forces can’t hold out forever though. Eventually the universe will win. But for now, we have the upper hand.

Yes, but you know what? It all still begs the question of why it started in the first place. Even if you posit that “vacuum energy” drove the inflation, where did that energy come from?

I’ve always admired the simplicity of Professor Hawking’s theory that the net energy of the universe is zero, and that the (+) energy of matter was exactly offset by the (-) energy of spacetime inflation. In fact, I would go so far as to say that as a type of quantum conjugate, spacetime/matter are interdependent; the existence of one necessitates the existence of the other.

I suspect that there can be no such thing as a spacetime-only “universe”. In fact, in my own model, there can be no such thing as a spacetime+”EM-radiation”-only universe, because “radiation” always has to have a material emitter and absorber, a start and an end (and in ALL directions, isotropically!). (Assuming that is so, it logically follows that the spacetime continuum is cosmically CLOSED. No spacetime expanding out radially into “nothingness”, because then you couldn’t emit EM energy out toward the nothingness – there’s nothing out there to absorb it!)

The quantum object called the “photon” becomes nothing more than the “energized” spacetime interval between the two, where the distance between start and end in the “photon” frame of reference is zero.

But “spacetime” (viewed as the distance between the start and end, and the delay in energy transfer from start to end) is manifested just because of the nature of quantum interaction between material particles giving rise to “EM radiation”, “gravity”, etc. “C” is just the constant universal ratio of space to time in that regard and is a fundamental factor in creating the phenomenon of discreet objects seperable by distance and time, instead of staying in a state of singularity.

What I’m trying to say in so many words that stretch MY writing ability is that spacetime (and thus any geometric representation of it) must come into being by some process. And that process must account for many of the things that seem strange in physics, i.e., things like relativistic length contraction, Bell’s Principle of Interconnectedness, quantum delayed choice experiments, the C^2 factor in E=MC^2, the rest masses of particles, numerous other examples.

But, I’m no theoretical physicist, what the eff do I know about unifying QM and relativity?

andrew

yo…i can follow that theroy…good job on expressing your self in a way that even the simplest of humans could understand lol…but yes that is very hard to comprehend as a person but u just have to look outside urself and all expeirences that uve had….i give this shit a 10 form 1 to 10…great job

Dennis Downs

Dale701
How did we get the idea of the big bang?
Well, Edwin Hubble discovered the red shift in stars.
So, it was determined that the universe is expanding. So, we followed the trail back to a starting point.
Here is the rub.
Everywhere we look it is expanding away from us, the earth.
Same mistake the bible thumpers made, the earth being the center of the known universe.

It would seem to me, that the starting point for the big bang should be a large empty area (most likely), or extremely dense area.

How can the milky Way galaxy be at the center?
How lucky can we be, to be that close to all the action again?

Phil E. Drifter

Sorry, no.

While our universe is, or at least gives every indication (red shift) that it is expanding in all directions at once, it is expanding because of the force of the Big Bang. that’s on the largest scale there is; however, given different ranges, each universal force (gravity, magnetism, strong/weak nuclear) has it’s own ‘home’ for lack of a better word. On *our* (humanity’s) scale, gravity is the most powerful force. Gravity is what pulled together the cosmic dust (two atoms both have gravitational forces against each other, pulling themselves together. then that pair attract a 3rd, a 4th, etc until stars and planets are formed. (We’ll call this the ‘micro’ scale since ‘macro’ would describe galaxies and larger.)

But if you hold a positive magnet in your hand outstretched from your body parallel to the ground, and you hold a negative magnet in your other hand and bring it up under the positive magnet, *all the gravity of the entire planet pulling the negative magnet down towards the center of earth will NOT overpower the strength of the positive magnet held above it. Eventually when you move them close enough together, magnetic forces will pull the two magnets together, regardless of how big the planet is or what it’s gravitational power is. So in this instance, magnets are stronger than gravity.

it’s interesting to think that possibly, eventually, the expansion of the universe will run out of energy expanding (although there would be no frictional drag from the non-space it’s expanding into, there will be cosmic drag across all the space the matter has already passed, is it possible that one day the universe will stop expanding, at which point logic states that then gravity will become the ‘supreme law of the land’ and begin sucking everything back together, inevitably resulting in another big bang?

Also, we’re on the verge of discovering lots of new information with the LHC soon; as of right now we don’t know *why* gravity exists, but I’ve read that physicists have their calculations and that these calculations would work…if there were at least 9 dimensions. However you and are are only familiar with 3 spatial + 1 ‘time.’ But it stands to reason that there could be more planes, more dimensions that our feeble evolution cannot comprehend yet. These additional planes don’t reveal themselves (easily) in any of the 4 dimensions we know know. Which is why I’m a big proponent of the ‘string’ or ‘superstring’ theory. You really have to ‘think outside the box here’ but imagine, say, you had a sheet of cardboard, again held out at arms length parallel to the ground, and there were many, many strings stapled and dangling from the underside of your cardboard. Normally they’d just hang straight down but if you shifted/jostled the cardboard sheet with increasing force, eventually these strings would start making contact with each other, somewhere along their lengths. It’s possible that these ‘cosmic strings’ exist and when two strings contact each other, a ‘big bang’ is produced. Just thinking about this makes my head hurt though. But i’ll check the comment box so that I’ll be notified of any additional comments, I’m always up for a good, intelligent conversation.

Phil E. Drifter

ps: to clarify your point, mr. author, you should change the title of this page to something like ‘The Big Bang was an Explosion of space-time, NOT an explosion IN space’ (because there was no space until after it happened)

Because space-time is irrevokably connected, as Einstein explained with his ‘bowling ball on a taut sheet’ example.

non o mus

How about if God created the Big Bang with his mighty hands and his first day may have been millions of our years to form the heavens and the earth?

Simplicio

To my mind everything that I’ve read about the standard model for the history of the universe is exactly that there is no center, there is nothing to which the universe expands to and there was no time dimension. The beginning was the beginning of time dimension as well, so it’s like asking what’s the point before the first point in a line. Simple mathematical example: there is no such point in a line from 1 to 10 that is 0. Now expand that to our four dimensions. There still is no point in the line you draw from 1 (the first conceivable point in time) to today (10) that is 0. This is not geometry, mind you, just basic mathematical truth.

i feel like its all happening at once, no time in the equation at all, its all just one expansion that will expand until every atom and all the parts the atom make up will be sooo far apart from one another (like the dots on the rubber sheet), and then it will collapse back in on itself and do it alll over again.

kate bond

it helps to realize that space is nothing, by naming it we catergorize it and thus our inclination is to think of it is something. But matter can expand in to something indefinitely as space is infinite, as it is nothing.

If time is a measure of things happening, matter doing something, then space as to time as it is nothing.
Thus there is no time in space before matter moves into it.

(im using space here as ‘the gaps between’ rather than the more coloquial use of space as in the universe around us.)

kate bond

*sorry change ‘something’ in the third line to ‘space’ …see the confusion starts already!

kate bond

*and ‘as’ to ‘has’ why cant i edit my post!

James

“If anti-matter particles has outnumbered normal matter, we would be living in a completely different house.”

I see what you are saying there, but I think it’s important to note that if anti matter had outnumbered matter, we would simply have reversed our definitions, so that electrons would be anti-matter and positrons normal matter. There would be very little difference to our houses, nearly everything is symmetric except I think is it beta decay?

I have in mind Richard Feynmanl’s story about teaching an alien how we are built and the difficulty in defining left and right. I recall he uses beta decay as an example of an asymettric process which can be used to define directions in an elementary way. But he concludes by saying if he offers his left hand for a handshake, watch out because he is made of anti-matter

But there really would be little to notice if we were constructed entirely out of anti-matter particles.

What I find more interesting is how close we were to living in the ‘empty’ universe you describe, where there are equal amounts of matter/antimatter. Matter outnumbered anti-matter by 1 part in a billion, (10^9)!

Not actually saying anything you say there is wrong, just pointing out really the things I find most interesting.

I’m sure they’ll be people ready to pounce and point out how you missed this or that, but I enjoy the simplicity. Maybe its because of my simple mind. :)

Stasis Osborne

This is a total heap of stinking convoluted, circular BS. It is the exact opposite of science. Charletans are alive and well in our ivory towers.

Your Mother

How do you know there was nothing before the Big Bang? Where you there?

M

“The universe must be expanding into something, what?”

This very assumption is based on the laws of physics in our universe and as far as I know, has no other grounds…

Can anybody fill me in?

Admiral Cuddles

Hey, r06u3AP. Give yourself a big pat on the back. Way to notice that no, he didn’t answer that all important question. Mind you, he never said he would.. but whatever, screw him anyways.

Jet

Very believable but contradicts the Third Law of Thermodynamics.

Joe

How about it wasn’t a “bang”? To all the little “particles” they were just doing what they do, and since the speed of light is what they do, they were just cruising along.
People don’t think about things like this, it’s good to see someone else who’s thinking outside the text book box these idiots make everyone else think it some sort of “law”. Then they change the books a year later but before that they talk like they know it’s correct.

Have fun, and please concentrate on stuff you can use in the real world, like make a UFO type craft possible, we need it.

Think, what can I use this information for to make the world a better place?

JamieYav

Ridiculous, you talk as if the big bang most definitely happened. i hate listening to such closed minded arguments about the universe of which we only know about 0.0000000000000000000000001%
Its fine you writing something and clearly saying that this is theory but you didnt and you should really try and do that from now on as there will be lots of people who read his and by your tone now think that this is the only answer. You might be right, you’re probably wrong, but at the end of the day write your “rubbish” (in my opinion) in a tone which says that you may well be completely wrong.
Sorry if it sounded angry but i kind of am.

Jamie

http://None Smarter than thou

You genius, you’re as much a creationist as religious zealots. If there wasn’t time then nothing can have happened. If it was the start of time then it was the start of everything from nothing. Keep your creationist dogma to yourself. Astronomy is about science not religion.

Benjie

Isn’t this the definition of a paradox/chicken-or-the-egg? The big Bang was an event that created time/space, yet for an event to happen there must be time. An event that happens is in time and since time/spec are the same, you can same an event must happen in space time. If space time has not been created, then an event cannot happen. Am I missing something?

This should make it clearer, or possibly just more mind-blowing, depending where you’re coming from.

Will

I think it’s a mistake to assume “there was simply nothing” before the Big Bang. Yes, perhaps before the Big Bang nothing that we now know and understand was in existence, but that’s not to say that something “else” didn’t exist – something completely foreign.

Daniel

All events that I know of occur over (local) time; it seems kind of fundamental to our idea of an event or a process. How can something like the big bang “happen” without happening “in” time? I suppose there was this t=0 point when “it” (the space-time fabric) all started happening. But contemplating how it “got” to t=0 is just… words fail me. It’s hard to imagine an effect like this bang occurring on the instantaneous knife-edge that is t=0 without a cause. It’s an effect without a cause.

If time and space are expanding, then with respect to what? I can use local time to measure the rate of some process here and now but we’re talking about measuring the expansion of space-time itself here.

I also can’t conceptualize the boundary. I could easily think of space as being finite/unbounded like a 3-dimensional version of the surface of a sphere expanding all the time. But I’m not sure that is the current model. If it isn’t how the hell do explain the boundary? If it is bounded, that’s just as mind-boggling as to how we got to t=0.

Do scientists have a clear conception of what expanding space does to the stuff of matter? Is it just that we have more space growing everywhere and how does this interact with whatever matter is? Aside from warping space time, what does it mean for matter to “sit” “in” space. I have this naive idea of a little billiard balls with fluid rushing in all directions out of them exerting some kind of pressure. I’m not even thinking about quantum physics and wave particle duality.

http://www.idcrossroads.com John

I never thought of it that way. Great article.

T

Sorry but this is all speculations. We really don’t know if time exists before BB or not. In fact we know almost nothing about nature of time and probably never will. Also there is no single fact that can proof “inflation of space”, we can still assume that our visible universe is just one bubble of many in infinite euclidean space. The BB could be explosion of energy/matery in space. Your article is misleading, you can’t say that “space is increasing between protons etc…”, euclidean space in which we all exist is not a rubber.

http://abnormalscience.net Alex Cassell

Some scientists think that the universe is in a cycle, right now it is expanding, but it will eventually collapse back in on itself, and start over. If that theory is true, then there certainly was a time before the (our) big bang, as they think that we are in the 12th cycle.

Fred

This sounds like a theory from someone who smokes too much weed.

cracker

“Space and time itself was being created first.”

Time is a measurement, not an object, and therefore doesn’t exist. moron.

liked the post. very interesting although i am not from this background entirely. sharing it on my blog via linking. hope you don’t mind.

John Corry

Interesting how the conditions in the universe had to be EXACTLY as they are for the universe to grow and for life to evolve. This is scientifically accepted fact. A sane, and truly objective person would thus argue that there are so many critical variables that had to be precise that it is impossible to sanely argue that there was not an intelligent creator, God. It is always funny watching atheist scientists (for there are a great many Christian scientists) twisting themselves into knots desperately trying not to come to the inevitable conclusion that God exists.

Cause and effect. What was the cause of the Big Bang? If there was no time, why did it happen? Don’t events happen in space-time? As a layperson, I cannot understand how something happened without something happening just before that that may include a cause.

Dr. H.T. Fade

It seems to me that a better representation of expansion than that of a sheet of rubber would be a balloon, or rather the contents of a balloon. While the two dimensional approach is convenient for printed representations it ignores the fact that this expansion is in every where and when.

That sphere of reality must reside within something, we just are not capable of comprehending what that reality might be. Indeed we may not ever be able to put measure to what that is, only that it is.

Thank you for that correction. It’s important that people understand what the dominant paradigm says.

I would argue that it’s just as important for people to learn about plasmas and how they tend to behave within the laboratory, as plasma-based cosmologies arguably pose a serious threat to the Big Bang cosmology. Please consider the following:

99.999% of all visible matter within space is matter within the plasma state. What that ultimately means is that how you mathematically model plasmas in space ultimately determines what your dominant cosmology says. The question is: Did we decide how plasma behaves based upon our observations of it within the laboratory? Or, did we decide how plasma behaves based upon our preferred cosmology? This is an incredibly important question because it wasn’t known that plasma was the dominant state of visible matter until the 50′s when we started sending probes up — which was many decades after we established our dominant cosmology. Up until that point, it was generally thought that space was a vacuum. We now know that space is in fact filled with charged particles (plasma). And as you surely know, charged particles can easily be made to ignore gravity.

If you go back and look at the origins of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), you will observe that it was invented by Hannes Alfven. During Alfven’s Nobel Physics acceptance speech in 1970 (for his creation of MHD), he distances himself from some of the concepts that are currently used to model plasmas in space — like frozen-in magnetic fields. He calls the concept “pseudo-pedagogical”, ie an idea that appears to be helpful, but is in fact very dangerously misleading. Needless to say, he was ignored by the astrophysicists. Astrophysicists continue to use his mathematical modeling techniques while completely ignoring his criticisms of some of those methods.

What we see within the laboratory is that plasma filaments possess long-range attraction to one another and short-range repulsion. In other words, they tend to form braided filaments. These braided filaments can in fact stretch on for virtually infinite distances and essentially act as power transmission lines. Astrophysicists have decided not to infer that our observations of filaments in space are generally related to our observations of plasma filaments within the laboratory. This is a very risky decision that they will likely come to regret.

In my own personal opinion, people who follow the Big Bang cosmology to the exclusion of all other cosmologies are basically blinding themselves to criticisms of their own favored model. Yes, the Standard Model is fairly mathematically rigorous. People should not however confuse that to mean that it is correct. If we are wrong about some of the physical fundamentals about how plasmas behave in space, and we are arguing for instance that plasmas behave like fluids in space when they are in fact far more electrodynamic than that, then all of that mathematics that describes the Big Bang can be completely meaningless in that it will lack any predictive power.

Just something to consider. If you want to learn more, you should check out thunderbolts.info …

Aaron Rayburn

Actually it doesn’t ‘beg the question’. It makes one think of the question. Or it logically leads one to ask the question. Just a syntax thing but you sound foolish if you use the phrase incorrectly.

Grammar Nazi

matt

Unfortunately I don’t know any physicists so I thought I’d ask here.

I’ve always been a supporter of the big bang and I was curious if there is a way to reconcile the link below with a big bang?

The existence of such a parallel universe “does not even assume speculative modern physics, merely that space is infinite and rather uniformly filled with matter as indicated by recent astronomical observations,” Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT in Boston, Massachusetts concluded in a study of parallel universes published by Cambridge University.http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/11/parallel-univer.html

Does this mean that prior to the big bang space was still filled with matter? Can there be uniformly distributed matter with a big bang?

Apologies for the simplistic quesiton.

Thank you,
Matt

Byron

I really dont like the rubber analogy of the universe expanding. If I took a rubber sheet and expanded it it would have a radius and a center. Seems strange to in the next sentence say “there is no center”.

So, I am by no means a science guy, and in fact see a few things where I have literally no idea what your talking about, but I get the main point. I just have a question or two. You stated that there was nothing before the Big Bang, no space and no time. I am trying to grasp this idea, but I have to ask, why did it occur? I can understand the idea of a universe that is constantly expanding obviously at one point being incredibly dense. And I can even understand the idea of it being irrational to say “before” they Big Bang. You start out the list of events by saying that it occurred, but surely a scientific person such as yourself won’t leave me to believe that it just “happened”. Why? How?

a bit confused

yeah. what he said..

Jonathan

So…

In the beginning was nothing, which exploded.

That’s how I’ve always thought about it….

Jesus Saves

God created the earth and all of creation. We will never understand that before, nor the whys. It is pointless to question His rationale, and only prayer can reveal the mysteries of His ways.

http://www.myspace.com/maikuniversum MaikUniversum

Why why why… God did it :D that’s why ! :D

John

Am I right in saying that the section above: “the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion of stuff like atoms or molecules, it was an explosion of a place and instance, it was the creation of when and where.”

should read…

“the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion of stuff like atoms or molecules, it was an explosion of place and instance, it was the creation of when and where.” (note the “a” before “place”)

usek

Another potentially decent discussion ruined by the need to mention Apple computer.

Catholicismforevar!

GOD MADE THE EARTH N00B. read Genesis for Goodness sake!

Smudge

Thank you for taking the time to clarify this point. It’s something I’ve wanted to make clear to people for a long time. It’s just a hard concept to grasp.

Grammar dude

“If everything in the universe is flying apart from everything else, this begs the question…”

It’s a shame that such an otherwise well-written article is marred by such an embarrassing misuse of English.

KazOo

With the Big Bang everyting that God had dreamt of in His magnificent Mind finally came into being. Out of his Endless Love into reality. Into time and space. Into matter, into cause and result. Into light and dark. Into autonomy. Everything is Divine, and still, God is far greater than All.

All is bliss.

Anton

“…Driven by vacuum energy. space and time are being stretched like a rubber sheet…”
I assume you are talking about vacuum energy outside of “space and time” entity.
But before the Big Bang there was simply nothing, there was no ‘where’. If there were no space, there we no vacuum, right?

Simply

Believe in God.

Not necessarily the Judo-Christian God (or their perception of it); rather the existence of a single deity that created for a purpose. What that purpose may be, I’ll leave to you.

Simply

This article and the comment following it were both Awesome, btw. It definitely shed new light on how I understood the big bang

http://www.blackmesaresearch.com Gordonfreeman

Ahh this is how it all started last time for me,
please dont question it, just know it happened…

I dont wanna have to go through all the stuff again
Like fighting the vorgs and combine wasnt enough with also being stalked by that strange guy who hired me, that G-Man, least thats what they called him round the office, he knew some things man, seriously knew somethings…

joe bribe

It’s impossible that there is nothing else besides the universe regardless of how big it is. There is and end to the universe but there can’t be an end to everything. I think we are a part of many universes.

DL

I like that you added the “space between atoms” stuff at the end. I very rarely see that discussed. What’s interesting to me, obviously only theoretically, is that if these forces are “counteracting” the expansion of the universe, if the universe accelerates, decelerates, or reverses (Big Crunch) then will that affect the way these forces appear? For instance, if the expansion reverses towards a Big Crunch, instead of acting against the expansion, these forces will be acting with the compression. What will that mean for the appearance of matter?

Of course, the missing element there is time which will also be affected, and the question has been asked before about whether a reversal and compression would have time reversing as well.

I rarely see these sorts of things discussed, which are the parts that interest me most.

@r06u3AP: I have the theory that we pick up M with our left brain (and the reptilian brain), E with our right brain (and the spiritual mind). And that the C^2 factor is our interpretation of the two. I think this coincides with what you wrote and with the theory that we are all creators of the universe.

I’m no expert at all, so let me know what you think.

Hooty

Great explanation, but I still can’t grasp the concept of something being created out of nothing.

http://www.e-oferta.ro Mihai Adrian

“Before the Big Bang there was simply nothing, there was no ‘where’ nor was there a ‘when’. It doesn’t even make sense to say ‘before the Big Bang’.”

You shoul read Sf. Vasile cel Mare (St. Vasile the Great) – “Hexaimeron”. He lived almost 1700 years ago and wrote the same thing about the beginning of the Universe.

Blutodog

THis whole subject reminds me of an old Zen koan I learned long ago. “The sound of one hand clapping.”

Zed

God spoke: Let there be light…

SZG

I don’t understand how nothing had that much energy, and what prompted it to burst forth?

And on a philosophical note, it wouldn’t make our houses look any different if they were made of antimatter. It’s all relative…

Jeff

During those first few seconds, when space and time were extremely compressed, I’m wondering if time would have been experienced at a different rate than we experience now (similar to conditions near a black hole). If it were possible for us to exist there, would each second (measured with our current time) seem like a thousand years? If so, does this mean that seconds are continuing to last longer although we are unable to observe this lengthening of time because everything is expanding along with it?

Dominick

You say, “Before the Big Bang there was simply nothing, there was no ‘where’ nor was there a ‘when’. It doesn’t even make sense to say ‘before the Big Bang’.”

It is true that our space and our timeline came into being at the Big Bang, but you seem to be implying that there was no space and no time prior to the BB. I don’t see how we can conclude such a thing. Could our spacetime be within another spacetime?

http://thetimchannel.com/ Tim Fuller

Yeah man, and the entire universe might just be a creation on demand, delivered to each of us as required, through some type of ethereal Ethernet. Anybody got any Doritos?

I get that there isn’t any space near us, that we can tell, that predated the big bang. But I think it’s funnily conceited to assert that there isn’t anything before/outside the big bang sphere. There’s nothing *you know about*. Perhaps practicality dictates that you assume there’s nothing there, since it’s unknowable and unreachable given your limitations.

But to assert to laymen that there is nothing out there, as if you know, is stretching truth at best.

Please let me know if I’m wrong, and that we *know* there’s no other bubble of space somewhere outside the universe, and I’d be fascinated to hear how you think you know that.

Doesn’t current theory posit that we might even be connected to other parts by some tendril we can’t see on the other end of the universe?

Just because it’s big, you don’t know about it, and it’s hard to think about, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Thanks!

http://www.srphm.com Joshua Rice

I think “Why” is something we humans created, and cant really be put onto the universe in terms of existence.

Mike Hunt

I agree, that in addition to asking what? (what is the universe made of) and how? (how was it created and how does it work), we must also ask why.

Man has created many things – art and religion, the very language in which we communicate. The word create, in fact, is given meaning by how we use it, and how we use it is based on our experience throughout our relatively short lives. We can use the word ‘create’ to refer to the process by which religion came into being, or use it to refer to the instant a star explodes, creating a black hole. All these events that we can describe the birth of, happen in our universe. However, anything outside it, cannot be described with the English language.

To say that our universe was ‘created’, is to imply that there was a time when this action took place. In fact, it is to imply that something happened, before time existed.

Listen up, people! We cannot use concepts like “creation” or “will” or “entity” to describe anything outside of space-time. Use your imagination! Most of us cannot accurately describe how a black hole works, and yet we are attempting to use words in the English language (or rather, just one word), to explain the origin of the universe.

It would be arrogant of me to describe the origin of our universe with just one word – ‘created’. Our universe wasn’t created, so let’s turn a new page in our imagination by embracing this counter-intuitive concept, and throw away the idea of a creator in our image as well. I would think that by 2008, our imagination can progress beyond these simple concepts of creation and creator, and try to imagine something that is truly, without question, as awesome and original as our universe deserves.

Jason

Unfortunately, the large hadron collider has not actually created mass at any point, thus disproving the big bang entirely. BAM! I win :D

http://myspace.com/pianokeys Adam

Finally, my acid trip hypotheses in college have been vindicated.

J

Well, if humans are capable of creating big bangs (large Hadron collider), then we’re capable of creating mini universes. If that’s the case, how do you know that our big bang’s universe came from nothing. That sounds rather silly. I tend to think of the big bang as a singularity, rather than nothing because you can’t really create something from nothing. We also can not see back (not literally) past 300,000 years after the big bang so the real answer is we don’t really know. We don’t know if there was a time (would be quite diluted from ours if there was) before the big bang or what caused it.

think

hmm.. and what if.. just what if our universe wasn’t the center of it all. kind like earth being the center of all things. they proved that wrong. there is more.. much more.

http://billybobza.blogspot.com Billy

Thank you for your excellent way of explaining the Big Bang Theory. This is the first time I think I’ve actually understood it, without having the questions you laid out in the beginning, which as you state, come from a misunderstanding.
While understanding more on what the theory is, I am however left with more questions than answers.
As far as I can tell, from what we observe, everything with a beginning has a cause; and as the big bang is being suggested as the cause of everything we see here today (eventually). But, seeing as the big bang event had a definite beginning, what was it’s cause?
Another question, is rooted in a need to explain some of the things we observe today: Where does information come from? In experience we find that information (or an intelligence, which contains information itself) begets information. How did this start and what caused it? Was it there in the very beginning?

That being said, well done on writing something that clearly explains a view that is often misunderstood and misrepresented. I don’t support the view, however I still commend you.
Thanks!

McCow

and at the center of every galaxy is a black hole, that is a new universe in the makin’….
A big bang some when else….
Lotsa galaxies…..
Lotsa BIG BANGS….
Our bang wasn’t so special…..
Bang a Gong & get it on….

If I turned all matter into energy what form would it be? Photons would still be considered particles, thermal energy is motion of molecules. Also what is the process in turning energy back into matter, if it is even possible?

http://embryodb.blogspot.com John Daniels Riveros

Yin and yang.
Order and chaos.
What you are saying is that space and time are an illusion created by the simultaneous creation of both the single quantum making up the universe and the infinite nothingness making up unreality.

Chaos justifying itself by virtue of containing all possibilities, especially the possibility of order.

Then in finite simultaneous possibilities collapsing into a process of successive possibilities, creating the 2d plane of time.

The multiverse exists within each electron/positron.

Dark energy is the antiphoton I call the dakhion.

It exists because e=+/-mc2, there being 2 dimensions to time. (c=speed of light, time)

call me prometheus.

http://www.webalice.it/sergiosaltamonti/ setteotto

No!
First, we must understand what is Space and Time and, no last, Energy.
Maybe Time isn’t a dimension, but it is an effect caused by the motion which is the effect of Energy trasformation. In other words, distribution of Energy generates motion, From this we have the feel of Time.

Chris

My brain actually aches now…

http://uk-tv-guide.com/ TV Guide

Nice, simple explanation. A Brief History of the Universe, also available as an audiobook for teh ipod generation, explains it in more detail.

Wow.

“”

Ok, let’s do that.

Seriuosly thought, nice article.

Melanie

Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed… This matter/energy had to come from somewhere and thus necessitates an “explosion” of sorts now doesn’t it.

randy

After reading all of this….well…my head hurts…in a good way, but it hurts. I still like the article and the oppinion though. I ‘m glad that there are smart people to figure all of this out and help the rest of us to have a better understanding of what we are, what we are made of, how long it took to start, where we will go, and how it all began….. but I’m glad that I didn’t ‘smoke that doobie’ as suggested…..yep…my head still hurts….;-)

Bam

Your wrong. The universe was created by The Flying Spaghetti Monster

All Hail His Noodley Appendag.

Tariq

That is actually quite profound, doesnt that rebuke the multiverse theory then.

Sorry for getting religeous and all, but this actually reminds me of a verse in the Quran.
In Sura/Chapter An-Anbiyaa, 30
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?

Jon Brown

You both misused the term, to “beg the question”.

Martin

r06u3AP is just the usual goobbledegook merchant talking c2ap and loving it!
Your explanation was simple and very good. I think I learnt something from it. Well done!

http://myphotosa.blogspot.com Benudhar Sahoo

Big Bang Theory is only our imagination.It is difficult to Place a actual truth theory, of this Universe.How this universe has created. If this Universe is expanding then why all the planets are not changing its orbit or go far from the Sun.Which power is Controls all the Universe? These questions are hunted to my mind every time.

Out of our Solar System,there is any life exist or not? How long this Universe is?

http://gcn.cx/myray Kush

The simple explanation is noteworthy but there is a major flaw in 2 mentions. First you can not have a glass of water without a glass. You can, however, have an amount of water equal to which would fill a certain size glass, but then the problrms becomes where is the glass and the water. I have mentioned before it may all be the dream of a butterfly. Well, then, where is the butterfly. Enough said you can not have a bedroom without a home. Otherwise it would simply be a small structure. This proves that there is much more to know than our feeble minds can possibily understand in the existance of life as we know it. I am not getting religious, nor mentioning any supreme type of being. I am just stating the obvious that if there is enough energy to create such a cataclysmic event as we can possibily imagine, there has to be a ‘SOMEWHERE’ that it can acquire the mass of whatever it is going to create in its explosive or generating event. If we take dynamite and stand bending over it in an open field we may be slightly injured with basic protection, but put that same amount into a small hole in the earth we would surely be dessimated shortly and be separated in many various pieces. Also the process that everyone tries to explain as the EXPLOSIVE CREATION, are quite incorrect indeed! The process of creation, in example as a hydrogen bomb, which appears to explode, is simply put a generation of energy by JOINING ATOMS, so what is created in such an event; creation? So a lot of destruction occurrs, correct? Not really, it is just that a lot of existing matter is changed into a different form of various energies, heats, light waves, and debris left from the event. An event such as this would only serve to prove my theories even more by simply stating that there had to have been some materials to have such am event occurr in the first place. And, do I know how to spell occurr ? I am not too sure and may be incorrect on that as well. rc

http://onlinedocumentaries4u.com Scott

I think that we will be revising many of the currently held concepts in physics over the next decade as we find out more.

This has to be the most exciting time in the history of science!

tomtom

I would have given it a thumbs up if it weren’t for all the grammatical errors

Bob

Me just simple man. Me not know. Aarrrrghhh!!!!

Richard

To the authors of the article and the first comment: your uses of the phrase “begs the question” are horrendous.

http://www.blokeish.com Alfie Punnoose

Thanks tony for explaining this in layman’s language as much as possible. It helped further understand the universe even though its hard to imagine beyond the 3D existence that we are in.

rar12

BLAAAAH LOL

Common Sense

I don’t think it makes sense to say we know anything about the universe, including it’s beginning. To make huge assumptions about such things without all the information to tell us so is ignorant – it really is. People still fight over shiny metals and pebbles, paper, and other primitive things – we live in a substitute man man reality.

My opinion is that consciousness started this universe, and is the ‘substance’ of the universe – pure thought/awareness – from matter, to planes of existence such as space and time. Consciousness is the force behind all living things, and even things we would term ‘non-living’ like atoms, molecules, gases and even light. As intelligent beings, we have the ability to think about thought. Man’s own curiosity for exploring and pondering his origins, from every individuals expression and make-up, is part of a much bigger picture, and is constantly growing.

I think if we want to really ponder about the beginning, consciousness should be on our minds.

Neinstein

thank you “r06u3AP” for letting us know how smart you are… duche.

sluggishmeat

then answer me this if everything in the cosmos is spreading out from everything else how do galaxies run into each other? we are suppose to collide with the andromeda galaxy in 5 billion or so years,if given the rubber sheet stretching analogy how do other white dots on a rubber sheet being pulled from the outside collide with another?
i assume gravity is the answer but it seems to fly in the face of the rubber sheet explanation.

nebeeseer

How did the big bang occur? What or who set it in motion?

Pepsi

“During those first few seconds, when space and time were extremely compressed, I’m wondering if time would have been experienced at a different rate than we experience now (similar to conditions near a black hole). If it were possible for us to exist there, would each second (measured with our current time) seem like a thousand years? If so, does this mean that seconds are continuing to last longer although we are unable to observe this lengthening of time because everything is expanding along with it?”

I agree. see below . comments welcomed.
The Universe is generally considered to be approximately 13.7 billion years old correct? But that’s years in our time now. One second for instance in our time now is different from 1 sec 13.4 billion years ago and will be different from 1 sec in 20 billion years from now. Why? Because time is defined by events happening. When I get up and go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee and come back and continue to type “time” has passed but only because I did these things or “events happened” …….. as the universe gets older less “things” or “events” happen each second , or hour , or year in comparison to the past. So in a sense , time was “richer” before. Now as you approach the singularity of the Big Bang , time was so rich (in the number of events) that to “time travel” back right to the point of Big Bang is impossible because you cant squeeze one more “event” at that point because it all “happened” then ……. and time is now just spreading these events (at the quantum level) out and slowly eliminating them to the point where , when all the galaxies and stars die out and there’s just empty space there will be no concept of time because there will be no events happening.

So , for example , as a bullet approaches the speed of light , the extra momentum required to get the bullet to value c ( ie the speed of light) becomes infinite. This seems analogous to going back in time to the beginning of time (Big Bang) ie you cant get there EVER. You could travel back into the past (assuming the hypothetical) for 300 billion OF OUR YEARS NOW and never get back there. Thus the universe is infinitely old. Thus , there was NEVER a “before”. Am I correct on this? Your thoughts would be most appreciated.

http://AvangionQ.stumbleupon.com AvangionQ

If the universe has two potential outcomes, determined by mass and gravity — less mass than gravity, the universe floats apart, spreading and cooling, a Big Rip that will eventually cause a heat death and atomic disintegration; more mass than gravity, the universe implodes under its own weight in a Big Crunch … but since current theories predict that the universe is actually a multiverse, with larger and smaller parallel universes, then what happens if a larger parallel universe comes to a Big Crunch? Is there enough excess energy from such an event to create a new parallel universe, a new Big Bang event? This is the sort of thing that’s keeping me up at night …

DanlBoone

..not bad.. need a definition for “nothing” tho… and some idea as to where” nothing” came from..

(old earth.. literal creation)

the cosmos reflect it.. some of the cosmological ideas of origin probably apprehend a certain amount of fact..

but science defers to religion when it presupposes a non-created model

DanlBoone

Hello CommonSense,

I think someone said something like that before..

“I think, therefore, I am”

see: “I AM THAT AM”

DanlBoone

..once upon a before time, nothing happened to nothing; which (then) for absolutely no reason whatsoever exploded; thus creating everything..

which against (10^180) odds, rearranged itself into self replicating bits that became dinosaurs..

yup,.. gotta be

DanlBoone

Mike Hunt
Nov 17, 2008 at 7:39 pm

…
[quote]Listen up, people! We cannot use concepts like “creation” or “will” or “entity” to describe anything outside of space-time. Use your imagination![/quote]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

thus THOU hast spoken..

Jack

Phil Drifter, no my friend. The Universe is not expanding because of the force of the Big Bang, the rate of expansion is accelerating due to dark energy. Ergo the universe will expand forever, unless for some reason dark energy changes it’s sign. In any case, the mass energy density of the universe is too great for there ever to be a big crunch even if there was no dark energy.

SparksFly

Cosmic Inflation is the theory of what came before the Big Bang. All of its major predictions that have been tested so far have been proven.

Si7ver6

however the universe was made it flys in the face of the rules that it is now governed by. And the only way we have to learn about the universe is by observing the way it is now. So we have no way of knowing with any amount of certainty what so ever happened at the start. it is so far beyond what anyone can even began to comprehend. Nothing exploded and made everything. that’s what science offers as a solution to how everything go here.

http://embryodb.blogspot.com John Daniels Riveros

The big bang was not an explosion at all, it is just our perception of reality approaching us at one planck length at a time.

http://godlessbastard.com Curtis

To All the creationists in this thread/discussion, especially ones stating that the probability of life just happened to be right for life is so ridiculously small, therefore there must be a God guiding it all;Take a look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and realize that the universe is massive beyond your comprehending. (Small probabilities)X(massive input sizes) still can have large results, or has basic math skills been lost along with your ability for logic.

If you can’t accept the fact that we are just tiny things on a small rock floating in a massive universe(that most likely contains many more tiny things on rocks), then go hide under a rock and let the rest of us progress science and humanity instead of creating another information dark age.

Quick response to the “just a THEORY” statements: Scientific theory means that there is a solid backing of evidence/mathematical proof behind it, the word I believe you are looking for it hypothesis.

Jordan

Sir Isaac Newton had a friend who, like himself, was a great scientist; but he was an infidel, while Newton was a devout Christian. They often discussed their views concerning God, as in their mutual interest science drew them much together. Newton had a skillful mechanic make him a replica of our solar system in miniature. In the center was a large gilded ball representing the sun, and revolving in proper order around this were small balls fixed on the ends of arms of varying lengths, representing Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These bails were so geared together by cogs and belts as to move in perfect harmony when turned by a crank.

One day, as Newton sat reading in his study with his mechanism on a large table near him, his infidel friend stepped in. Scientist that he was, he recognized at a glance what was before him. Stepping up to it, he slowly turned the crank, and with undisguised admiration watched the heavenly bodies all move with their relative speeds in their orbits. Standing off a few feet he exclaimed,

“My! What an exquisite thing this is! Who made it?”

Without looking up from his book, Newton answered, “Nobody!”

Quickly turning to Newton, the infidel said, “Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this?”

Looking up now, Newton solemnly assured him that nobody made it, but that the aggregation of matter so much admired had just happened to assume the form it was in. But the astonished infidel replied with some heat, “You must think I am a fool! Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I’d like to know who he is.”

Laying his book aside, Newton arose and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “This thing is but a puny imitation of a much larger system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a design and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?”

Regardless of whether or not this is a true story, it is the principle that matters.

Christopher John

God existed eons before the BB. Only difference was there was no form. Then God said: ‘Let there be light’…..

Moses

I read every comment on this page. All of them very interesting (some idiotic, but interesting nonetheless). To be honest, I’m not sure what I believe. It is far beyond me to conceive in my mind something being created from nothing. I’m not able to understand nothing existing before the big bang. I’m not able to understand the universe being infinite…or anything being infinite for that matter. I’m not a religious man, although I was raised so. I used to believe in a creator…but now I just believe in myself…and that’s all that seems to matter. EVERYTHING we experience is subjective. Though science may ‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ things in this reality, it’s all a matter of perception. If consciousness didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to ask these questions or make these hypotheses anyway. Maybe instead of trying to figure out why the universe exists, we should try to figure out why consciousness exists…and in turn this may possibly answer everything else we need to know. That’s all I have to say.

Julius Siador

God is a state of conciousness with which everything comes from. As there are states of conciousness we perceived all around, so are there so called gods we acknowledge in some limited way. Yet the limitless belongs to one conciousness we may or may not call father, as each of us are bound to only one god of our choice. All that we perceived are just a matter best resolved in just two opposites, belief and unbelief. Take this as a scientific example: Proponents of Big Bang acknowledge with firm belief the existence of common origin of our perceived dimension, yet they have not understood yet the singularity of everything right at the start we may or may not call “the origin of existence”. (In the first illustration, take note of the “?” symbol denoted before the inflation period.)

Let me explain further. What if such One Conciousness reside in a man we may or may not call Christ, and in him brought forth a different class of subatomic particle of much lesser energy content, but this time in a fucused ray (given that our conciousness of time and space are already in place) and just inflated (or, got its inflatory epoch) right at the only person among multitudes who has touched the rim of his garment, and altered the genetic code that result to the instantaneous healing of some sort of cancer in her by the interaction of the space-time of different class with the resulting subatomic wave particles annihilating only the certain wave particles that constitutes the bad genetic code? Maybe, this time we should take into consideration the other different subatomic particle different in flavor, constitution and energy level that may create an entirely different level of conciousness and existence that may result to annihilation, restructuring, arrangement, continuity, and/or order (and a lot other ways) to this wonderful existence we enjoy, with differing flavors, mix and fusion and intensity to each of those spontaneous unknown particles.

May God help you in your utmost quest of much higher level of conciousness that is so endearing as much as it is elusive for the moment, as we are still stuck at this testing ground we call temporal home.

Bdox

Thanks for that odd little opinion piece. But it appears that you believe in magic, or gods etc. However it seems to me that you have the typical human limitation of thinking that all things must have a beginning. Time and space, or time/space, that great media of reality, need not have a beginning and need not have an ending.

I suggest that the expansion we can observe is one glimpse of one phase of a great oscillation.

We actually do not know anything.
I just know that I exist. Everything else is happening in a virtual world in my mind.
For me, you all reading this do not exist…
You all are AI bots…

Someone is now watching me sleeping in a room, seeing me dreaming all that and laughing sich die Seele aus dem Leib…
Maybe not even I am real….

Sggir1D

“Imagine pulling a large rubber sheet with white dots on it from every direction. All of the dots are spreading apart from each other everywhere, not from some central point. From the perspective of each dot, all the other dots are moving away from it.”

A big gas bubble in a glass cube.

Julius Siador

Well, what seems/appears to be may not be the reality yet it establish a true perception derived from the individual’s own consciousness, no matter if it takes a role that plays/plots a trickery or plain scenery that moulds a unique understanding. Hmmmm, Bdox, you could be in simplistic way perceived me among the blind and poor individuals who are milked by devious entities and charlatans and religious order proclaiming that they are children of God or mighty satan, or those that boast, claiming to be diety in person. Take note, we all progressed from babe to adult and there was once in the early period of life that we were gaining insight that trickery exists that may confound or alter our better understanding. I hope you deepen your thoughts and tackle the unknowns that are ever expanding in our insights as our understanding shines brighter than ever to probe the depth of every posible thing.

Well, it seems to me too that you are trying to expound the string theory. Please be reminded that a lot of proponents of string theory diversified into probing the unknowns that seem magic to ordinary beings yet regarded as scientific enough to the more conscious society. What if you try to interconnect the origins of emotions and awareness to such wonderful theory? Until then, you may soon realize that you just took one glimpse of the heavenly existence, the domain of God, wherein everything oscillates in perfect harmony apart from the birthpangs of our perceived fleeting universe that seems detached from our spiritual willpower. I know that your thoughts written here are the amalgamation of several thoughts and misconceptions perhaps, wherein you defined and carried through by a mere belief that what is formed later is nearest to the truth which is just fairly relative.

Please take a second look that I am expounding the theory regarding the singular particle before everything. I never believed that everything exist out of nothing. All there is to know is that apart from photons there is nothingness. Matter and Antimatter are just packets of trapped energy, such that when brought closer to each other liberate a tremendous energy in a form of photons and subatomic particles: rather than annihilating to nothingness the process is merely energy transformation. Thus, it is aptly stated when Jesus commented that he felt a power left from him to the one touching his garment, tapping the harmonic oscillation of interconnectivity of elements in this created time-space by just the sheer power of pure emotion and decisiveness that the present science have not yet explored significantly.

I may further conclude: Everything in this known space-time (no matter how massive yet confined to an infinitely small dimension at the start of the Big Bang) started with a finite energy and the net is never zero or from utter nothingness, nor is infinite. Also, The Creator is theoretically not bound by anything. I just don’t know how…

Jacob

“Next something really strange happens, the inflationary period. In the smallest fraction of a second, the universe gets very big, very fast. Driven by vacuum energy. space and time are being stretched like a rubber sheet, there is no center. Space and time and simply being created everywhere all at once within the boundary between where space and time is and where it isn’t.”

Forgive me if my perception of basic laws of physics are faulty, because I’m only in High School, but what would stop this ‘inflationary period’? Inertia remains constant unless acted on by another force, so naturally our universe has a velocity that is so fast that I can’t even imagine it, our laws of physics are highly flawed, or that’s bullocks :D

I also just can’t fathom that NOTHING existed before this happened, not even time. From my understanding, most people have the opposite way of thinking than what I just just said, however.

and.. not all of us creation people argue against the big bang (or big poof)…

DanlBoone

ps..personally, I prefer ‘big bang’…

seems like all that friction would cause some ‘noise’ …

wait a minute.. yep.. I can hear it between channels on my tv..

told ya!

nebeeseer

this is a reply to botox or bdox… Bdox
Nov 25, 2008 at 10:27 am

Thanks for that odd little opinion piece. But it appears that you believe in magic, or gods etc. However it seems to me that you have the typical human limitation of thinking that all things must have a beginning. Time and space, or time/space, that great media of reality, need not have a beginning and need not have an ending.

I suggest that the expansion we can observe is one glimpse of one phase of a great oscillation.
magic gods… who do u think u r God… limitation of thinking that all things must have a beginning- how idiotic- bdox was a baby (beginning) and bdox is gonna die (end) time and space time/space that great media of reality “gag-gag” I love agnostics or atheists when they don’t have an answer they get all poetic and dreamy and detached from “that great media of reality” …and hope a bunch of fancy dribble will suffice for an answer!!! Excuse me I have 2 barf into a media of reality… a toilet!!!

Bdox

nebeeseer,

true that Bdox comes and goes like a spark off a grinding wheel, but that is merely changing form, not existence.

Why do you drag in the god concept? Why does that fantastic idea apply in a discussion of a supposed “big bang?” Since you choose to be nasty rather than to contribute a thought, when you heave into your toilet of reality, just go with the flow.

Julius, thank you for your thoughtful response. Let me point out that in describing my thinking about such things, I strive for comprehension, which requires not injecting any unfounded notions. Such as the notions of “Jesus” or “the creator” because those things lead us into temptation. Temptation to suppose that we, with our great egos, can get away with applying such esoteric and controversial things into the mix and come up with a genuine result…

nebeeseer

nebeeseer
Nov 21, 2008 at 9:07 pm

How did the big bang occur? What or who set it in motion?
No answer.
Melanie
Nov 18, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed… This matter/energy had to come from somewhere and thus necessitates an “explosion” of sorts now doesn’t it.
Melanie contradicts herself here.

Everything in this known space-time (no matter how massive yet confined to an infinitely small dimension at the start of the Big Bang) started with a finite energy and the net is never zero or from utter nothingness, nor is infinite.

This profound piece of dog crap from that most noble philosopher His Eminence Julius Siador

let me translate… the universe originated from finite energy… limited,bounded,terminable…and the result is never nothing nor is it anything… What kinda dope is he smoking?

I love danlboone’s quote (10^180).WOW!

I need to put that in perspective. In my garage r about 1000 pieces of various screws,nuts,bolts,nails and washers.Lets say I put em in a GIANT bucket and I swirl em around wit a GIANT spoon. Then I take a GIANT golf club and hit the bucket up in the aire way way high so it becomes like a tiny speck of dust. Then I go to sleep 4 -10 hours. Rising early the next morning.And by jimminny there in my front lawn is a nut and bolt man!!! But he ain’t doin nuttin yet cause he ain’t got no spark in em yet!! WOW- POOF-MAGIC. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw… EVOLUTION: FAIRY TALES FOR ADULTS. In closing remember a cauliflower is just a cabbage with a college education. M. twain

science cannot (has never seen) / demonstrate a blackhole; even while the numbers seem to predict the existence of same…

the similar sort of data re: a
____ ‘finely tuned universe’ ____
should be treated with the same dignity as the data representing black hole theory (for one example)

simple intellectual integrity demands it

also, the sheer math representing the probability of chance occurrence of even an amino acid (let alone an enzyme) is a mathematical absurdity given the number of atoms in a 13.7 billion yr old universe.

science presupposing ‘NO’ creator is not ‘science’ it is a materialistic religion, because; science cannot DISPROVE a creator

cool comment… biogenesis is a great ‘leap of faith’ in a materialistic school of thought..

; )

Julius Siador

Thanks Bdox for your acknowledgement. Your apprehension is understandable considering your comprehension regarding any unfounded notions exactly mirrors mine too. Sadly, in this case, what may be unfounded for you is already established for me. Nowhere can you find a prophetic book so profoundly revealing as the Bible if only you try to truly comprehend it. For a start, just try to fathom Genesis 1:1-6. Although that does mean a recreation from an overcast frozen earth after the dinosaur age, it is a double-edged sword that reveals the birth of the universe, with referrence to the light at first day. Most of us understand that the proponents of Big Bang Theory know about the role of photons without referrence to any known esoteric religious themes, but solely rely on scientific principles. To me, that only means that the Bible prophetically reveal the nature of light without ever influencing the minds of the scientists and theorists. Statistics is scientific enough to affirm a mind-boggling improbability that any early books discuss about the essence of light for the first day of creation. Please, let us not be fooled by neglecting any Statistical anomalies if we really are advocates of a far more comprehensive science.

Nebeeseer, haven’t you understand the greatest prophesy of Jesus with regards to this topic? Please read Matthew 24:35, 1 Corinthians 7:31, 2 Peter 3:10. Any inappropriate words are bound to hell and cannot be remembered.

Let me clarify those that pertain to your concerns, Nebeeser. If you know, our particle accelerators can create both matter and antimatter of exact mirror images. When they come closer together again they just regressed to their former photon state. That then would generate tremendous heat equivalent to mass and energy gained and lost to the particles as they travel inside the energized particle accelerator. I never acknowledge utter annihilation but energy transformation, as pointed out in 2 Peter, “and everything in them will disappear in fire”. Please be reminded that the current version of Big Bang Theory is flawed in a lot of ways. I reckon that the universe is divided into two clusters of matter and antimatter distinctly divided by momentum. Our present science cannot truly identify and observe yet which is antimatter due to the same properties of photons they emit and due to the vastness of space. Thus, it is approprately said “everything”, as matter and antimatter are equivalent to each other. Photons cannot annihilate each other, they just occupy the same space at a time they are in contact to each other. With this idea, I can safely conclude that the total energy is finite, not infinite, and photons were at the same common point at the start of the Big Bang. The net/total is never zero as energy can never annihilate itself!

nebeeseer

Dear Julius Forgive me 4 my crass words I just wnted 2 git ur attention. Now do u really believe this…Let me clarify those that pertain to your concerns, Nebeeseer. If you know, our particle accelerators can create both matter and antimatter of exact mirror images. U used the word “create”. Now my understanding of create in the purest sense means making something from exactly nothing. Not taking something that exists and colliding it and recording the results. That’s not creation. Gen.1:1-6 Gen. 1:1 In the beginning
G-d created the heavens and the earth and the earth was void and without form and darkness was on the face of the deep… “void and without
form” Heb. tohu and bohu. Found in only 2 places
here and Jer.17. def. desolation,barren,void,destruction,wasteland. where is the proof 4 this… For a start, just try to fathom Genesis 1:1-6. Although that does mean a recreation from an overcast frozen earth after the dinosaur age… the fossil record doesn’t bear this out nor does scripture. Have u ever heard of Pre-Adamic creation. Google it c what u come up with. Now… Any inappropriate words are bound to hell and cannot be remembered. Where is scripture 4 this saying. I remember every word I wrote exactly. God bless

Bdox

Dboone

You say:

“science presupposing ‘NO’ creator is not ’science’ it is a materialistic religion, because; science cannot DISPROVE a creator”

Which is itself, nonsense. Science is not in the business of “presupposing.” Positives or negatives. Science observes, and questions what it observes. It does not bother with the various suggestions of the supernatural because there is nothing to observe.

As far as being some kind of religion, no. A religion is a belief system based on faith, which is not the currency of science.

DanlBoone

Hello Bdox,
I appreciate your comment(s):

” Science is not in the business of “presupposing.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.. my point exactly…

science abandons it’s own method by presupposing a completely naturalistic model for life generating from non living materials in light simple statistical data, if nothing else

further…
multiverse theories continue to collapse into a mysticism since the proposed indicators continue to point back toward universe models

here’s a simple paste job for the scientific method:

The basic tenant of the Scientific Method is that you can only disprove, you can never prove anything scientifically. Now, as in a court of law, we may be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt; but only by not being able to disprove. Not disproving is not the same as proving, it does not mean that our hypothesis is right, it only means that no one has been able to develop a test which actually disproves our explanations

Hypotheses which can not be disproved are elevated to the exalted position of a theory. A theory is a working hypothesis, explanation, that is used by the scientific community to continue to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world around us. We can use theories to make predictions about the behavior of observable phenominon.

DanlBoone

‘phenomena’ (bduh)

;- )

DanlBoone

this states a little more clearly what I mean about science not being able to disprove a creator:

The final step of the scientific method is to rigorously test your prediction. Remember, you cannot “prove” your hypothesis. You can only fail to disprove it. While this is an example of how the scientific method is used in everyday research and hypothesis testing, it is also the basis of creating theories and laws

http://www.SecularEarth.com Skeptic

Very interesting article. I have a question however. If I have a big rubber sheet with white dots on it and I am pulling it apart from all sides then the white dots all move apart from each other, this illustrates how the universe is expanding everywhere and there is no center. What about the white dots near the edge where I am holding on? Are they not near the edge of nothing? Are they not very close to the point where the expansion is taking place?

Perhaps the rubber sheet does not illustrate this correctly. Perhaps a rubber sheet cannot illustrate such a thing. A rubber sheet does have a center point and two dots on the opposite sides would move apart faster than two dots on the same side.

Can someone tell me if I am off base here?

Bdox

dboon,

Re: your cut and paste job was authored by someone who does not understand scientific methods. As to your shorter revised version: True enough, but before anything takes on the status of being a hypothosis, there has to be something observable, repeatable and measurable to base it on. Items of faith do not achieve that standard.

And again, science does not try to disprove a creator because the concept fails to meet the requirements for examination.

DanlBoone

Hello Bdox,
thanks for your response. I would argue however; that, you posit a scientific materialism.

~(or material scientism more apt)~

here is some simple data.. I would appreciate your evaluation of it:

Within the field of statistics, the possibility of anything with less than one chance in 10^ 50 is defined as “absurd”.

formally, a _ mathematical absurdity _

The statistical odds of generating life by chance are absurd:

The chance of generating a single amino acid has been calculated to occur once in every
10 ^130 tries

(the number 1 followed by 130 zeros).

To assemble the enzymes by chance from
the amino acids has been calculated as one chance in 10^40,000.

http://is.gd/Fo2/143972517 design

The Universe was created after a great explosion known as tthe Big Bang. The dimensions of space and time appeared after the zero time.

I don’t want to bog this conversation with sophistry on my part, or obfuscate with jargon that I personally could only pretend to understand.

(So) with that said; following is a brief excerpt regarding the philosophy underlying the development of current models of the universe, (with link below) and cited from a paper:

Astronomical Evidences for the God of the Bible
by Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

3. the oscillating universe
Research that brought about the demise of the hesitating and steady state universe models simultaneously strengthened the case for the big bang and, thus, the prospect of a beginning and a Beginner.

This turn of research dismayed many cosmologists. In their dismay they resurrected a model first proposed by early Hindu teachers and Roman atheistic philosophers-the oscillating universe. British physicist John Gribbin voiced the opinion of many:

The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe is philosophical—perhaps even theological—what was there before the bang?

This problem alone was sufficient to give a great initial impetus to the Steady State theory; but with that theory now sadly in conflict with the observations, the best way round this initial difficulty is provided by a model in which the universe expands from a singularity, collapses back again, and repeats the cycle indefinitely.36

Since 1965, when the oscillation model first received serious consideration, astronomers have engaged in a tireless effort to find sufficient mass to halt the expansion of the universe. All the evidence, however, both observational and theoretical, still points in the opposite direction. …

but it doesn’t threaten my faith in Christ… rather it reinforces, enhances, complements and compliments with a wondrous fragrance of understanding

renders to my a mind a peace that transcends understanding

http://www.thetechnologyscout.com Tom

I think that the 3D brane proposed by Brian Green deserves a closer look. It provides a mechanism for universal regeneration that appears the same as the big bang without the need for inflation.

Mark Walsh

Ok so let me see if i understand what it is that you are saying,

In a nut shell, you are saying that before the big bang not only was their no space, but no time either.
“In the smallest fraction of a second, the universe gets very big, very fast. Driven by vacuum energy. space and time are being stretched like a rubber sheet, there is no center. Space and time and simply being created everywhere all at once WITHIN the boundary between where space and time is and where it isn’t. That boundary is increasing.”

Ok fair enough, but I disagree… COMPLEATLY!
YES the big bang was the creation of the space that we now know, matter, anit-matter, stars, planets, you, me, him, her. but the void that that very same matter now fills was always there, as was time. Just becasue their was nothing around to experience the flow of time does not mean it was not there.
(“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?”)
It is the same princaple.

Lets pretend that we are back at the very creation of the universe as we know it, the big bang.
Now let us pretend that when it happened what ever spewed forth from it done so in either a circular or cone pattern, either way it is expanding.
Now let’s take what you say about this newly formed universe and any boundry that it may or may not have…

“So any universal boundary that exists (an edge to the universe), is between place and time, and nothing. Of existence and non-existence. Of laws of nature and no laws of nature”.

So we are back at the big bang watching it happen, I then ask you, if we are within this new universe are we eperiencing time? Are we going through the very passage of time? well of course we are, we are within the very universe.

“It is that boundary which is expanding and has no center. It is the “when” and “where” that things can occur that is getting bigger all the time.”

BUT what if I then go beyond the boundry of the universe?
What IF, I decide to go a great distance beyond the boundry that is still expanding to watch the big bang take place, do I then no longer exist simply because I am outside of the “when” and “where”?
But if that is the case and I am no more simply because I went out into the void, then that is what is going to happen to the universe as it expands, boundry or not. It is going to expand out into non-existence and cease to exist.
But that does not happen, the universe continues to expand and grow and fill up the void, this place of non-existence.
So then if that is the case then when I go out into to void then I too must still be, and more than that I am out side of the newly formed “space/time” experiencing the very passage of time its self!

Ok so lets take this one step further, we then go back in time again. This time, to moments just before the big bang. Now according to you that cannot be done because time did not exist untill the big bang took place, but I have established that by going out side of the universe, beyond its boundry, that time does in fact take place, so I am led to assume that it has always being there witch means that I can in fact go to just before the big bang and watch it happen.
Witch means that space AND time did indeed exist before the big bang.

Somebody

If space is stretching, is time slowing down?

B. Johnson

If all motion ceased, down to the movements of sub-atomic particles would time even exist?

And to those who point out that the universe is somehow “fine tuned” to allow mankind’s existence!

You do realize that conditions that allow life exist in only a tiny fraction of a percent of the known universe?

Even on planet earth the majority of the surface (unless one breaths water) in incompatible with human life.

We are here because conditions just happened to favor the spark of life, not the other way ’round.

http://Nil Different Opinion

In fact, you are all wrong. You’re ideas are complex to the point of absurdity. Clearly we are not the centre of the universe, so you religious delusionists can fk off.

I will tell you how it happened as simply as I can.

Shit happened,
get over it

Time travel will never happen – if it were to happen at any time in any point, then people would be telling us, “Yo! this time travel thing is for real” but there not, so you all are wrong and supremly dumb.

Regards,
The better man

Mark Walsh

You call your self the better man and yet you compleatly shoot down everyone for having an opinion.
(not something the real better man would do)

DanlBoone

will this post?

DanlBoone

Hello B. Johnson,
you said:

“… those who point out that the universe is somehow “fine tuned” to allow mankind’s existence!

You do realize that conditions that allow life exist in only a tiny fraction of a percent of the known universe?

Even on planet earth the majority of the surface (unless one breaths water) in incompatible with human life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

good points.. I see these facts consistant with fine tuned universe. Life as we know it exists inan extremely narrow angle of an extremely hostile environment.

This lends further to a purposeful design rather than order arbitrarily rearranging itself from entropic chaos.

You also said:

” We are here because conditions just happened to favor the spark of life, not the other way ’round.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This would appear to be a great leap of conjecture on your part without any (any) scientific support..

That is to say.. no models stand up to criticism for life (to) “spark.. ” (sic) from non living materials.. ie ‘biogenesis’

life ‘sparking’ from non living materials against insurmountable odds of probability:

“.. conditions just happened to favor..”

is a philosophy of naturalism… a scientific materialism… a presupposition of ‘NO’ purposeful design (more apt a pre-supposed ‘NO’ Creator)

DanlBoone

Hello Mark Walsh,

I’m not sure I follow all of your arguments.. but I tend to agree on some level with what I perceive to be the locus of your comments..

(It) would seem to me that simple reasoning demands something overarching to the space- time continuum of current cosmology

my presupposition in that, is of course a Creator.. an extant: “I AM THAT AM” versus multiverse theories

the ‘big-bang’ models are theories for the universe coming into being (nearly) instantaneously from ‘nothing’_ (a singularity) which strongly represents the Biblical model

This would appear to be true; however, we might be central to a low gravity sphere.. see: weaknesses in the Copernican model

DanlBoone

Hello B. Johnson, you posed the question:

“If all motion ceased, down to the movements of sub-atomic particles would time even exist?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I not sure I follow the context of your question.. but I think this absolute zero temperature (doesn’t exist in the universe) was what Einstein thought to be the greatest blunder of his relativity theorizing.. absolute zero is when all motion (thus heat) ‘stops’..

but science has strengthened that same concept..

see: Bose–Einstein condensate

DanlBoone

Hello Somebody, you asked:

“If space is stretching, is time slowing down?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think that’s a good question.. I perceive it this way: How does a decelerating expansion of the universe effect time? (an explosion expands and decelerates at the same time)

but.. redshift data coming from Hubble seems to indicate an accelerating expansion of the distant cosmos..

which seems to indicate a beginning for time

that is, that vastly distant objects are moving away ‘faster’.. even approaching the speed of light

DanlBoone

Hello Tom, you said:

“I think that the 3D brane proposed by Brian Green deserves a closer look. It provides a mechanism for universal regeneration that appears the same as the big bang without the need for inflation.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

interesting stuff.. my brain hurts..

;-)

more later (hopefully)

Jean Verkest

Well to know what happened before the big bang, or what we imagine the beginning of our universe, is hard to say if you see all these posts with different ideas.
Still I don’t believe that there is a creator of everything. I’m looking like a person who is open for both sides.
We can’t explain for sure or even imagine if there will come ever an explenation how the it all started. Because for me things like infinite is saying it’s very big or very small, but I actually don’t know. Real infinity doesn’t exist for me.
Everything is so complicated and we know how big the universe is. Well it’s unimageable to think there is a creature that is ruling over us. First at all if we look, everything is made out of matter. How good, smart and big should that creature be. How could you even imagine him.
The idea of a creature that created our universe is breaking my mind.

I think, we today, and probably for the next ages wont be able to solve this mistery because of the fact that our brains aren’t able to understand this.

You can’t get an idea of something if you can’t link the idea with something you have seen before. There must be a link.
If the concept is totally new you can’t make a link. The step is much to huge.

If someone wants to discuss with me

-> jeanverkest(at)hotmail.com ( (at) = @ )

Greats Jean (sry for my bad english)

B. Johnson

“If all motion ceased, down to the movements of sub-atomic particles would time even exist?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I not sure I follow the context of your question..”

Only that time would seem to be dependent upon motion for it’s existence. If there were no motion whatsoever would time exist?
Light has been slowed to just a few miles per hour with something very “like” the Einstein-Bose condensate…

Like most of the other posts on this subject I’m just speculating.

Also:

You also said:

” We are here because conditions just happened to favor the spark of life, not the other way ’round.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This would appear to be a great leap of conjecture on your part without any (any) scientific support..

The assumption that the universe is intentionally fine-tuned for our type of life is also without any scientific support is it not?

If we were a silicon based life form basking in hard radiation while breathing chlorine the same fine-tuning argument could be given. ;-)

And if you are arguing a creator and His/Hers/It’s creation we are entering metaphysical grounds where no scientific support is possible.

B. Johnson

Jean Verkest stated:

“The idea of a creature that created our universe is breaking my mind.”

That idea has broken many, many minds.

DanlBoone

Hi B. Johnson,you said:

“And if you are arguing a creator and His/Hers/It’s creation we are entering metaphysical grounds where no scientific support is possible”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

..good point.. and I think that is exactly where the ‘razor’s edge’ of science so to speak re: string physics is pointing.. to the metaphysics uniting quantum mechanics and general relativity

the extra dimensional universe required by the currently breaking theories (string) 4 brane universe with 6 dimensions bundled within the first 43 decimal places of a second of the thermal big bang (inflation)

would have to be in some other universe.. so the data of the finely tuned universe we are in wouldn’t apply..

fine tuning is based on the same available data currently supporting the big bang.. and other science

here’s one bit:

A large enough expansion rate. The birth of the universe had to begin with enough force, or life couldn’t exist.

Stephen Hawking states, “If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.”

The above is noteworthy also in light of the fact, that..

Stephen Hawking is a materialist scientist.. searching for data to support mutiverse theories

Stephen Hawking also said:

“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life

B. Johnson

“Stephen Hawking states, “If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.”

There are myriad “what if’s” along these lines, but they cannot be deduced as evidence of a creator.

The simple fact is, if conditions weren’t “just right” we wouldn’t be here arguing the point.
Whether or not these conditions are “created” or “just are” are totally unprovable concepts from both sides of the argument.

And countless minds *have* been broken on the wheel of faith (or lack of it), but it is and shall probably always remain a concept of faith.

I do not wish to denigrate anyone’s beliefs and I hope I have not offended anyone too deeply.

I stand firm on “My” belief that the “fine tuning” argument isn’t proof of intelligent design.

Regards and Happy Holidays (whatever they may be) to everyone.

Regards: B. Johnson

OMG

To the idiot that stated “time is a measurement, moron”…. you really need to brush up. The wall clock is a measurement. Time itself is a dimension. Moron.

bipolar2

** dirty little appendages — **

Ancient Egyptians surmised that a dung beetle created the Earth. I accept the fecal gospel of “intelligent design” as long as it is extended — the entire cosmos emerged from the collective wisdom of committees of dung beetles. The committees are still in charge . . . and having problems (as committees always do):

** The mistaken Anthropic Principle — note from HQ **

To: All
From: CEO, Sentient Beings Inc.

Subject: Major anthropic screw-up, causes and proposed solutions

It was the Corporate Committee on Systematic World Ordering which initiated an RFP, cost-plus basis. Failure to recognize that Hellaburton was an unreliable contractor, created certain problems with shoddy workmanship and substandard materials which quickly emerged.

These however were plastered over for at least 4 billion years until the first multicellular creatures appeared in planet’s Precambrian oceans. By then it was too late to adjust any nucleotides. After all, it is a double blind test.

The last 550 million years, however, have proved one unforeseen disaster after another, culminating in Nature’s Greatest Mistake, homo sap. Currently, almost 7 billion cases of hypertrophy of ape prefrontal cortex! [Walking and talking mutants all of them!]

Delicious irony though. The defect also provides an illusion of having “free will.” Of course, homeostatic causes are still causes. But, as delusions go, this one is a sicko. Unfortunately, the trait is far too entrenched now to be wiped out by laws of population genetics.

Looks like human heads must roll. The Corporate Committee on Oort Cloud Exploitation hopes to find a suitably large comet in the next 65 million years, give or take 5 million years.

However, let there be light! The standing Corporate Committee on Bio-organics has estimated that the average species lasts only about 2 million years. Patience hath its rewards.

Personally, I want the testing to continue. I find myself inordinately fond of beetles. I’m betting on them. Let it be called the arthropodic principle!

it’s the grandest example of dishonesty in the world: the culties find it absolutely contradictory that the universe doesn’t have a cause, but proven without a doubt that the soul fairy doesn’t have one. no amount of stupidity can possibly explain this incidence rate of this transparently false argument.

Cliff

for those confused about the rubber sheet analogy, try this (this is how it was taught to me in a physics lab long ago):

Imagine you are a 2-dimensional being, say like a little dot, or a little circle. Further, imagine you live on the surface of a balloon with other dot-friends. You can do this at home by drawing dots on a real balloon with a marker.

Now as far as you know, the universe is flat. You can move along your 2 dimensions, around the surface of this balloon. If the balloon is big, you may think you live on an infinite plain, and the ‘Universe’ may appear to go on forever. You are 2D, so you cannot perceive that you exist on a curved surface. In fact, even imagining a curved surface may be difficult. All of your dot friends live an apparent distance away from you.

Now imagine that the balloon is being slowly inflated. From your perspective, the universe appears to be getting bigger. All of your friends are getting farther away from you. You might even conclude that you are at ‘the center’, since they all seem to be moving directly away from you.

But back in the 3d world, we can see that the actual ‘center’ is not on the rubber surface at all, but inside the balloon. You can still move around on the surface just fine, and you can still ‘collide’ with a friend, as long as you were moving faster than the rate of inflation was stretching the surface.

Your ‘shape’ may begin to be distorted, but let’s say you had a ‘force’ that kept the ink that you are drawn in close together (gravity).

That is how hubble expansion works.

Now just add 1 dimension to everything. Instead of living in a 2d world, we live in a 3d (spatially) world. Instead of being on the surface of a 3d balloon, we live on the surface of a 4d ‘balloon’ (roughly, there are lots of debates on the actual shape).

That is why it appears everything is expanding away from us. That is why it looked (before Hubble’s explanation) like we were at the ‘center’. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to talk about what it is expanding into, in the same way that to the dot on a balloon, everything outside the surface ( like inside and outside the balloon) isn’t ‘space’. It may be like ‘space’, but not in any sense that the dot knows or can access.

For the balloon dwellers, the big bang was when the balloon had radius=0. Same for us, except the ‘radius’ is not in a dimension we live in or can easily conceive. It’s a mistake to think of our universe as some 3 dimensional space expanding into some larger 3 dimensional space.

Many physics students actually do this lab in an introductory course with balloons, and chart the changing distance between dots placed randomly on the balloon vs the rate of expansion (blowing up the balloon) to derive the hubble constant.

It’s hard to conceive initially, but once you’ve done the experiment yourself, it’s kind of hard to argue against.

Pat Axline

Example When a oil well fire is blown out by dyna mite the fire is put out by vacuum. example 2 when a nuclear explosion takes place it blows outward but implodes in upon itself to create the visible mushroom cloud. Your answer on the big bang only makes sense to me if all the matter you speak of are the escapees of the blast, i.e. (objects we call the universe) Your answer even answers the question of black holes creation due to size and atomic mass of the object. But consider that the event horizon of a black hole is limited even in the space time continuium then why isn’t ther a limit to the universe even if it hasn’t been reached in our present understanding of the process.

Chris

I always find it interesting when people try to figure out where everything came from. I read what most every one on this had to say about the explanation of the big bang theory. I enjoy reading people say that we can’t possibly understand the big bang and the universe because we are only human with limited knowledge and ability, while at the same time saying God doesn’t exist because it just doesn’t make sense that God could exist. It seems to me that that argument kind of contradicts itself. Creationists do not help their own argument by simply stating that that is how it is. This tends to make everyone on the other side of the spectrum very upset and kills all possible credibility. Creationists tend to view science as evil and, thus, are quick to refute it. Those against Creationism tend to see religion as some defect in people who can’t seem to accept that there is no absolute truth. Well, science and religion go pretty well together, especially Judeo-Christian religions. There is absolute truth and much of science points that out; every law we have in science is the basis for everything in science and those laws are always true and cannot be changed. Since there is absolute truth, there has to be somewhere that makes all this true. In other words, God must exist. The most logical god from every religion is the Judeo-Christian God. If God created the universe, then we have a moral standard, right and wrong is not relative. If the universe just happened on it’s own, then there is no moral standard we would all be living in complete and utter chaos.

With all that said, what does all this talk of the beginning of the universe have to do with anything that is happening today?
Nothing, other than a moral standard.

We should be concerned with people around us and their well being, not contemplating theories of how everything came about.

Everything I have stated, though I have not used fun quotes and equations, is true. If you think what I have stated is false and want to tell me why, just leave a comment and be sure to mention my name.

Chris

pete

Isaiah 45:12

I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

D Brown

Chris,
You said: ” every law we have in science is the basis for everything in science and those laws are always true and cannot be changed. Since there is absolute truth, there has to be somewhere that makes all this true. In other words, God must exist”

You do not understand science. Science is not about immutable laws or beliefs, science is extremely flexible, religion is totally rigid and unyielding.

The “laws” and theories of science have been changed countless times. If a theory is proven wrong by other researchers or findings then that theory is discarded.
Not so long ago science thought the Newtonian laws were the last word in physics, then along came Quantum theory…perhaps someday “it” will be shot down or modified.

Point is science is flexible and changing, religious beliefs are not…

BTW I’m agnostic, I don’t presume to know what cannot be known.

Chris

D Brown,
Nice rebuttal!
When I said that every law in science are always true. That is because it seems everyone who is against religion of any kind (though some things in science seem a lot like some sort of religion to me) seem to say that every scientific law is absolute truth, and some theories, and I was just trying to use their own argument against them. I guess I failed at this plan.
I find what the Bible says about us is true, but I don’t see any benefit in trying to make everyone see things in the same light. With that said, my goal was to make people think, not change their minds.
I am not sure what you mean by being agnostic, but I guess I just need to get out more.

D. Brown

Thank you Chris,

Agnosticism, at least the short version, means the belief that the existence of god can neither be proved nor disproved.

You wrote: ” I don’t see any benefit in trying to make everyone see things in the same light.”

Everyone should believe as they wish….save it hurts no one else.
Unfortunately religion sometimes does indeed hurt people, the destruction of the world trade center and the continuing destruction of life by suicide bombers in Iraq and elsewhere and the christian component involved in the decisions to attack Iraq being prime examples.

The American Indians were slaughtered in part because Christians thought them heathens.
And of course the crusades and the Spanish inquisition come to mind.

But I do agree with you regarding personal believe, but only with the above mentioned restriction …that one’s personal religious beliefs harm no one else in any way.

D. Brown

DanlBoone

I’m a Creationist that lives in QuantumLand..

..but -’then’- (that’s) neither HERE nor THERE..

;- )

Chris

D. Brown,

The problem with all those atrocities that were committed in the name of religion (especially Christianity because that is the one I know), is that they stopped listening to what God has told us and what Jesus also taught us (certain things are wrong, but that doesn’t mean we should kill everyone who is/does something wrong because we all do wrong things all the time, but build relationships and try to help them) and started doing what they felt was the “right thing to do”. It’s all about relationships. Christians are the biggest reason people don’t want to learn about Christ. It’s sad. (If you are curious about what I believe, I would be happy to talk to you; if not, that’s fine.)

If being agnostic means you do not presume to know what cannot be known, do you think/know the Big Bang happened? As far as I know, it has not been proven and is still a theory.

If I sound like I am being unprofessional, let me know because I am not trying to arouse anger, only understand what others think.

I don’t mean to sound like just another “Bible thumpper”, but there should be a capitol ‘g’ in God because it is his name, regardless if it you don’t think he is real, and you used it in such context. Just like Thor, god of thunder, is still spelled with a capitol ‘t’. (Yes, I even capitalize proper nouns in IM. I might be a loser for this…)

Chris

Julius Siador

My friends, the Big Bang Theory affirms what is written in the Bible, although the Atheists and Agnostics could be awestruck by its depth and magnificence without referencing it to any religious texts, including the utterly revealing Holy Bible. It is rightfully so, because it takes the basic mind of every child to appreciate the wonders of what seems to these novices as accurate predictions, while those adults that progressed find the Holy Scriptures as narration of the long-established truths, and the rest of the adults, no matter if their intelligence soars higher than ever, regressed into believing that such holy manuscripts are not just unholy to them but a source of confusion or illusion, and further rendering such as unscientific and totally useless. But wait! Are they dragging the holy passages in light of their own merely inconclusive science? It is analogous to measuring the galaxies with the use of a mere yardstick in your hands instead in terms of a light year. They do bore themselves to death of the enormous numerals, yet never see the Light!

But, is there really no science to it? By the way, no wonder why Atheists are termed “Fools” in the Bible: They make their belief, rooted in their inconclusive and ever-evolving science, so conclusive in their own right! Yet, does this true logic spare the Agnostics? In the end, the burden of truth lies on such blind Agnosticism: its advocates play too much rhetoric, and ultimately resting on a wall inside the borders of intellectual laziness. Now, get ready to embrace the higher science to what is in the Sacred Texts—“The Science of Intent”.

We never really appreciate the full intent without the consummation of the action under scrutiny. Just imagine the few seconds from the start of the Big Bang; any thought that the elementary particles at that time would eventually turn into gold and silver to be worshipped upon idolatrous life forms that constitute the same elementary particles would be inconceivable. Yet, we can fully comprehend it now as we are literally surrounded by ignorant idolaters. Now, it is within anyone’s comprehension that there exist only two completely opposite intents in terms of belief: Intent to teach and intent to deceive. So striking are the dissimilarities that we can simply dissociate the two extremes, and any attempt to cause their association borders on ultimate deception or ignorance. As man is a social being, we tend to personify everything that we have a deep connection, such that the beneficial intent is personified as the Holy Spirit and the destructive intent, as the Evil One. If this newfound science of INTENT is alien to most scientists, yet it holds the key of branches of mathematics and science, like the statistics, forensics, behavioural sciences, etc., then why should these Agnostic and Atheist scientists fret on the rational thinking of most man to further such science into religion? Instead of fretting, they should look deep into their own selves and try to understand that there exist a morality behind everything, and it is the light that they should embrace or advocate, rather that the downward spiral of detached and impassive science or investigation. Atheism and Agnosticism are merely products of higher form of rebellion to one’s intuition and awareness with which both are beyond mere physical sciences can handle and rationalize.

Just ponder at what Pete above is trying to convey: in Isaiah 45:12 Statistics will prove the eternal knowledge around the recent theory of Big Bang—“I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have STRETCHED OUT THE HEAVENS, and all their host have I commanded.” (Emphasis supplied.) Such Supreme Being is both God and Love, with all the purest intent: Our Loving Creator who can restore us in His Own Right.

D. Brown

Faith is faith and reason is reason, and never the twain shall meet. ;-)

[...] If anti-matter particles has outnumbered normal matter, we would be living in a completely different house. [...]

I would say that is just the way of looking at things … maybe in that (other) house, we would be calling what exists as ‘matter’ and the other stuff ‘anti-matter’ !

http://www.hippyco.com Dale Clark

“BUT what if I then go beyond the boundry of the universe?
What IF, I decide to go a great distance beyond the boundry that is still expanding to watch the big bang take place, do I then no longer exist simply because I am outside of the “when” and “where”?”

I believe if you were to attempt to “go beyond” these boundaries you would in fact stretch the boundaries along with you. It has been explained that it is impossible to “go beyond”

“Ok so lets take this one step further, we then go back in time again. This time, to moments just before the big bang. Now according to you that cannot be done because time did not exist untill the big bang took place, but I have established that by going out side of the universe, beyond its boundry, that time does in fact take place, so I am led to assume that it has always being there witch means that I can in fact go to just before the big bang and watch it happen.
Witch means that space AND time did indeed exist before the big bang.”

Did life exist before life existed?

http://www.hippyco.com Dale Clark

No just larger fractions of time are being processed..

http://www.hippyco.com Dale Clark

but “life” may be beyond carbon based. Just because we are alive because of our planets conditions doesn’t mean that another planet with completely different conditions doesn’t support “life” based on completely different variables.

XRayMartian

Time is passing quicker where we are, not slowing down; giving the appearance of space stretching.

Bob

That takes slightly more faith to follow/believe then the existence of God. Well done.

John Deer

well, lots of folks live parallel lives, and their husbands/wifes can’t even imagine… Is that concept we are talking about ? We can’t deal with the infinite because nature laws taught us that it just can’t exist. So reading such an article makes me laugh because of the assumptions. The article account for ZERO “theory” words. For the author its all provable content… oh well…

1st: how do you fire up the accelerations in the LHC ? With nothing ? look at the ammount of energy you need to start it!
2nd: you are mixing the concept of void, with finite and infinite; the Big Bang seems pretty much finite in your mind, like a starting point; that reveals human shortness in thinking: “don’t care, let’s start here”; yet, this is the answer fall all thinks the pseudo-starting point!
3rd: one day, we’ll probably fly light-speed: tell a medieval man you can fly around the world supersonic speeds, and you’ll go straight into the fire!
4th: stop comparing the expansion to a rubber sheet, that’s the wrong analogy; you don’t have analogies for the concept!
5th: apply earth’s laws of physics to the universe: we are there already!
6th: Big-Bang theory is unacceptable, because its “explained” with lots of magic;
7th: that’s all a good book sell; marketing, not science;
8th: explain a fart, not easy!

Colin Copley

Seriously like, that’s pure mental by the way.

I’m glad the origin of the Universe is cleared up – what’s for breakfast?

As coincidental as the information of the universe embarks on there is not enough information to make this adjustment of a full understanding of everything to acknowledge this claim Gravity is then ripped into 5% of everything we know in the universe. The break down between the connecting and the not connected space will help all fields in study give a better understanding of space. Gravity is the key signature in fabricating a universe a multi verse for a quantum world on a less then average scale here on Earth.

Traveling at the speed of light spreads the knowledge of the universe and expanding universe spreading outward in all directions in rotational alterations tined together by the fabric of space. There are forces in the universe that change and rearrange our theories.
Entering black holes on to another destination in space a wormhole through space leaves matter a worried manner of rearranged data the speculations that separate fact form fiction is a mathematical extreme. Staring out into space while space in starring deep back at you, filled with cosmic life. Life at one time at one point in time in the universe is unanimous for one entity to populate the universe one at a time in absurd to give life little then a chance and disrupt this voyage in a big bang is universal law that can not be broken. Life is a mirror image of the universe. Thus being said our universe is unsolved and the little more we don’t know is more coincidental the universe will stay.

I Cameron bailey came across little more than just a saying the limits are not your limitations it is the destination you make for yourself is the limit and there and beyond is were you find your self.

A small very small object stood in space that is held responsible for what we now see today as the universe to become at such a size is a mystery I Cameron bailey will shed light on how such a mystery is now solved and how space and time and the fabric of all law pertains to this occurrence in time.

A magnificent amount of space occurred. Light to slow to travel outward. this space enclosable. For the big bang to have ever had to happen space would have needed to remain first.

Space integrated for matter and the law of attraction. Galaxies left over from the discharge of the big bang now exist. The law and force of gravity and the center of these masses of cosmic debris arsenates the rotational activity of the group the type of galaxy.

Key to the centers of these debri giants lays in the middle some know to be black holes a gate way into space a fast ticket around space were space can be bent and create a short cut to a destination at slower than light speed the energy generated would bend space to create this short cut in space naturally.

There is no entrance and no exit in the center of a black hole stars rotate around this space because there is an extreme creation of space condensed by the law of attraction. An item to fit in this extreme point of space will have to compress 4 trillion times faster than the speed of light. There is no mass created at the center of a black hole and no wormhole connecting to different destinations.

This extreme compression is seeding the universe with matter converted into energy to travel at faster speeds of pure energy until the law of attraction is broken in the entire remaining universe a big bang can have enough space to remain into a proportionate remaining space.

The second to convert energy into matter is the protons atoms that created the universe the millionth of a millionth, millionth of a second just to create anything is a split second and there was no irregularly evidence to record time. But Space would have had to be recorded else where before time there is the law of the universe.

Cameron Bailey

Now that the universe can create itself it is easy to see that an item to fit in space is a design

that where psychology is the foundation of life and our pragmatic ideas of generic information is stored this is the only difference between who tells the side of the brain that this is the left brain why should it be any different from who tells the brain that this is the right side. Our whole belief system is badly connected and I never knew libraries of information hated each other. This is another theory the importance of this over that is the basic conception of the spiritual events you read today or whenever you choose to. I am Atheist I don’t preach I investigate. Its evolution and that’s fair tell a Hindu to go to hell maybe evolution will show you something new. Darwin didn’t set out to disprove god he set out to find why people look different from people and at that day and age it’s ethically wrong so animals he did it on animals that’s why it’s not that explosive. Monologue me.

Jack

The guy that discovered the Primer Fields says the Big Bang Theory is out the window. A new theory is coming soon. Stay tuned.

Cameron Bailey

Expanding universe will expand far enough to allow enough space for another big bang to occur. A big bang can only happen if there is only enough space. Not that space has been created or space explodes that space is like a sheet of rubber stretched to infinity but it is infinite in itself but the matter that has been converted back and forth from and through energy exist as the universe will qualify as the universe. Image a phone in the size of your hand examine the space that the phone takes up now shrink the phone down to the size of your pinky in your hand space has increased now shrink that phone to the size of your finger nail space expands inwards and outwards.

Cameron Bailey

The only imaginable force that can compress matter into energy is a black hole not that a black hole is a force but is a place created not at the center but from the galaxy itself. To extreme, space is to widen the size of matter or to shorten the space that matter occupies